


stray cats of the same village

by nekomimichan (orphan_account)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Friends to Lovers, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow To Update, Smoking, bc i can't seem to get into the headspace of this fic ayy lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 10:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20044402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/nekomimichan
Summary: because all the pictures junmyeon has painted with his perceptions of his own realities were not of displayable value, he'd locked himself in his bedroom and cried all afternoon, meanwhile yifan crafted him a crooked first place prize of miserable quality by using an old shirt and the ribbons junmyeon used to wrap his birthday presents withor: "There are many paths to tread."





	stray cats of the same village

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually based on [a song](https://open.spotify.com/track/1rY4UYyZ3PcuYgWIddkcnL)  
and over [here](https://lyricstranslate.com/tr/beni-sen-inand%C4%B1r-be-one-make-me-believe.html) is the translation of this song  
you can also find the turkish version of this fic [here](https://www.wattpad.com/story/191097694)  
please do enjoy reading^^

"Think about it,"

_He_ said,

"You spend sixteen years of your life in school. _Sixteen_."

_He_'d long stopped smoking, but _he_ still took the lighter out of the left pocket of the cardigan Junmyeon had given _him_. When _he_ extended out _his_ broad palm towards the brunette, he took out a single cigarette from the pack he had in his hand and placed it on _his_ palm without a protest.

"For sixteen whole years; going to school, studying, being in a classroom setting becomes a routine. It becomes a part of you, like an identity, you know."

Watching _him_ light that cigarette stung, but Junmyeon did not comment on it. _He_ inhaled the first drag, then _he_ waited, and when they made eye contact _he_ looked at Junmyeon like a child busted mid-action by his mother while raiding the snack cabinet. _He_ looked away then, exhaling the smoke behind his shoulder, away from Junmyeon's eyes.

"And then you graduate, and sixteen whole years are erased from your ID, like poof. Gone. Just emptiness, as if there never was a single thing, not even a trace."

The awareness _he_'d brought was an odd feeling, like pouring lukewarm tap water all over the neighbourhood pavement the government had built with raised taxes coming out of his own pockets, and the realization of it all in a moment of off-guard thinking. Junmyeon realized he'd never put in a thought about not even a soul speaking up, saying **there's something wrong with this**, he'd never seen the lack of such a riot. Never felt the absence.

He was twenty-two years old, and he was graduating in three days.

"So, do all the roads end, now?"

Junmyeon asked, he hadn't lit up his own cigarette yet. _He_ shrugged.

"All roads come to an end, eventually."

Maybe _he_ wasn't as lost as Junmyeon about this situation in particular, or maybe _he_'d dwelled and brooded over it a lot without telling a word to Junmyeon, maybe _he_ was used to it by now. _He_ turned his face to the side as _he_ took in the second drag. And Junmyeon, with the unlit cigarette nestled between his fingers, felt so, so lonely without _him_.

"Then how do people carry on?"

_His_ empty hand slid across the marble step it was placed on, and _his_ fingertips pressed against those of Junmyeon's empty hand sitting on the other side of it. Junmyeon felt tears prickling under his eyes. He's drifted so far away now, as it seems; especially from himself.

"There are plenty of roads to walk on."

_He_ replied. Junmyeon could only agree with _him_.

All of the writings were scrawled and twisted and so messy in a way that Junmyeon couldn't even make out neither the begining nor the end of his own story, and all of his brush strokes were discordand and absurd as though they each belonged to different paintings of their own, none for Junmyeon no matter how persistently he tried his best. As the saying goes, there's no cure for the dead and the inevitable; whatever will be, will be. Junmyeon acknowledged that yet again.

Junmyeon held onto his best friend's hand once more. His balcony with no railings was facing the West, and together, with their feet dangling down the short step by the edges of the balcony, they watched the full moon set and the dawn broke slowly. The sky had a nice shade of a pastel blue, Junmyeon thought he liked that. That he liked the full moon, and dangling his feet down his balcony with no railings, and the crispy dry cold of the eerie hours of the morning. That he did not like Yifan smoking, but that he liked Yifan.

He _liked_ Yifan.

"Do the roads that lay before us ever cross paths?"

_He_ laughed. Junmyeon thought that he liked the way _he_ laughed. That, for the time being, it was the sturdiest of the invariables of the remnants of a sub-conscious personality he may or may not once had, and also of a past identity seized out of Junmyeon's grasp piece by piece like archaic rocks and cliffs being corroded by vicious ocean waves. When Junmyeon held onto _his_ hand tighter, he wondered whether _he_'d understood that Junmyeon was not okay, that he had these troubled thoughts eating him up and swallowing him as a whole at the same time. Junmyeon wondered what could he ever believe in if he'd known _him_ wrong all these years, if _he_ was a mere stranger, just misunderstood.

"We can step on the grass until we stumble upon paths that cross."

_He_ said. Junmyeon nodded his head, he wished to stride all of his tracks alongside with _him_.

"Yeah, let's do that."

That was not a promise, but Junmyeon desperately wished it was. He desperately wished for _him_ to be by his side, desperately wished not to be fighting for himself all alone on his own. Maybe it was selfish of him, for _he_ was no different from him in the end; only they were losing sleep over different things, perhaps. As the full moon disappeared, it was slowly sinking in on Junmyeon just how much he'd drifted apart from his home that he'd never physically left, he desperately wished for his hands to stop shaking so much.

"We'll carry on together."

_You made me begin_, Junmyeon thought, _please let me go on with you_.

Maybe if God had some mercy to spare on Kim Junmyeon he would've kissed Wu Yifan under the last lights of the full moon, but he couldn't. _He_ put out his cigarette, and threw the butt at the balcony of the opposing neighbour from a floor below, and Junmyeon put his own cigarette back into the pack, unlit.

The hopelessness and the despair Junmyeon had felt before _he_ stood up from where _he_ was sitting down right next to Junmyeon stung wires at Junmyeon's throat, choking him down. _He_ looked at Junmyeon behind his shoulder.

"You coming?"

Junmyeon forcefully inhaled in a breath into his nose, he licked at his dry lips, chapped from the morning cold.

"Yeah, yeah I am."

[Beni Sen İnandır](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8DuZJ5-dmA)

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nexomimichan) and [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/nekomimichan)  
hopefully i won't let this fic rot


End file.
